The Eurydice Project
by Christine Morgan
Summary: Matt Bluestone believes in a lot of things, but not ghosts. He's about to be proven wrong. #15 in an ongoing saga.


The Eurydice Project   
By Christine Morgan   
http://www.sabledrake.com   
christine@sabledrake.com 

* * *

Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles are the property of Disney and   
are used here without their creators' knowledge or consent. All others   
property of the author; please don't borrow without permission. 

#15 in an ongoing Gargoyles fanfic saga   


* * *

  
"I'm really getting worried about Matt," Elisa Maza announced   
without preamble as she let herself into the gargoyles' quarters.   
"Maybe he just took a sudden vacation," Brooklyn said.   
"Not without telling his partner," Broadway immediately   
replied.   
"Do you really think he's ... missing?" Angela breathed.   
Elisa ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "It's been   
two weeks, _nobody_ has heard from him, and I know Matt. Always   
before, when he'd go off on some crazy quest, he'd make sure to leave   
notes with someone to open in case he didn't return. The whole   
paranoid-conspiracy thing. But there's been no letter, no nothing."   
Goliath came to her. "We've searched everywhere we could   
think of."   
"Yeah. And I'm grateful. I know I can always count on you   
guys! But I'm running out of ideas, and I don't know what to do next."   
"Demona?" Brooklyn suggested, smacking a vehement fist   
into his palm. "She's got to hold a grudge after that apple business."   
"Are ye sure he's in trouble, lass?" Hudson asked.   
"Hey, Matt can handle anything!" Broadway declared. "Except   
maybe the Dracons finding out he was involved in Vito's death."   
"Or maybe the Quarrymen got him," Lex said.   
Elisa groaned. "That's the last thing I need!"   
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of David Xanatos.   
"Alex has something to show you," he said, setting the boy on the floor.   
Alex tottered unsteadily to his feet and took several steps   
before ending up on his diaper-padded rear. He then looked around   
expectantly.   
Lexington cheered and turned to the proud papa. "I thought   
he'd never walk!"   
Xanatos grinned. "I know. According to the books, he should   
have been walking months ago, but all he'd do was scoot on his feet and   
hands. He was fast, I'll give him that, but -- what are the rest of you so   
glum about?"   
"Matt's still missing," Elisa said.   
Xanatos was fast, but not fast enough. Elisa was on his flicker   
of reaction in an instant.   
"You know something, don't you?" she pounced.   
"Nothing I can share, detective."   
"Dammit, Xanatos!"   
"If you do know where Matt is, I suggest you tell us," Goliath   
said ominously.   
"If I knew anything that I could tell you, I would."   
"Now, why do I not believe that?" Hudson muttered.   
Xanatos bent and picked up his son, who was in the process of   
trying to eat Bronx's ear. "We'll come back another time."   
Elisa put herself between him and the door, and Goliath was at   
her side. "He's my partner," she said simply.   
He sighed. "All right. I'm not even supposed to know about   
this myself, but I'd bet he's with the Illuminati. I'm not exactly sure   
what's going on, but he's probably safe."   
"The Illuminati! What do those creeps want with Matt?"   
Brooklyn asked.   
"Matt _is_ one of those creeps," Xanatos said. "As am I."   
"What, you want an apology or something?" Brooklyn shot   
back.   
"No, what he wants is for us to stay out of it," Elisa said   
bitterly. "Because these secret societies look out for their own, and if   
one of their own dies on some stupid mission, they hush it up."   
"That's a harsh but not inapt statement," Xanatos said. "I   
promise you, though, I'll find out where Matt is and what he's doing."   
"Yeah, but you won't tell _us_," Lex pointed out.   
"But at least you'll know that I know, and that should offer   
some reassurance."   
"Scant little," was Hudson's opinion.   
"Damn right," Elisa said.   
"But," Xanatos said, sounding as if he really earnestly wasn't   
trying to sound smug this time and mostly succeeding, "it's the best   
you're going to get."   
* *   
Two hours later, David Xanatos stepped into the mahogany-   
paneled elevator of the manor house that served as a meeting place for   
the Illuminati.   
He waited until the doors had sealed him in solitude, then   
removed his eye-in-the-pyramid lapel pin and pushed it into a matching   
depression on the lowest button on the control panel. The button flashed   
green briefly, and the elevator descended.   
The level he reached was far below the parking garage, even   
lower than the Hall of Antiquities Arcanum that had once been the   
target of a thief named Draconi, and more recently the spot where Matt   
Bluestone had experienced something that only the highest-ranking   
members of the Illuminati had ever seen, and then only with the aid of   
ceremonial hypnosis and hallucinogens.   
Xanatos himself hadn't been through the ceremony, having no   
fondness for mind-altering substances. He found that unreality tended to   
pop up often enough in his life without the help of drugs.   
If it came as a surprise to the Grandmaster when Xanatos   
appeared in the small room where Matt Bluestone lay, it didn't show.   
"How is he?" he asked as if he had every right and reason to be   
here.   
"David," the Grandmaster acknowledged. "Do come in." They   
were the only people in the room, and Matt was in no condition to greet   
anyone.   
He was laid out on a slab and could have easily been mistaken   
for dead. His pallor, the slackness of his skin, and the chill in the room   
all suggested the morgue. Only the steady bleeping of the monitors and   
the ceaseless rolling of his eyes beneath closed lids proved that he was   
yet among the living.   
The medical equipment, only slightly more advanced than   
would be found in a first-rate hospital, somehow went oddly with the   
pentagram etched into the slab. Matt's head pointed toward the top of   
the star, and his pale skin was dusted with gritty powders of many   
colors. The room was lit by squat candles in brass holders shaped like   
coiled dragons.   
"How is he?" Xanatos repeated, picking up the chart that hung   
on the wall and scanning it.   
Tension had drawn deep lines in the Grandmaster's hawkish,   
handsome face. Xanatos knew he'd lost a brother to the very same   
circumstances, and the stress of those memories combined with concern   
for the young detective were taking their toll.   
"His pulse, blood pressure, and physical functions are all   
remaining within normal fluctuations, but look at these brainwaves!" He   
held up a long roll covered with spiky etchings. "He's been in a constant   
state of REM since we put him under, but the pattern, particularly these   
alpha waves, do not even come close to normal. That cannot be good   
for him."   
"He's lost weight."   
"We've got him on the glucose," the Grandmaster said, tapping   
the I.V. bottle.   
"When did he go under?"   
"Nine days days ago."   
Xanatos raised an eyebrow. "But he's been missing for two   
weeks. What happened to the other five days?"   
"Preparation. Reading. Research. Contemplation. Prayer."   
"Prayer?" Xanatos echoed, looking down at Bluestone's still   
features. "I wouldn't have pegged him as a religious man."   
"You'd be right. That is why it is so unaccountably strange that   
the woman would appear to him. For all his beliefs in what we _do_, he   
has a streak of hardheaded realism in him that makes him resistant to   
the idea of what we _are_. He's no mystic. He scoffs at the paranormal.   
Haven't you noticed?"   
Xanatos nodded. "He was always looking for the scientific   
explanations, the government cover-ups. Real psychic powers, real   
magic, real divine action, those wouldn't have satisfied him."   
"Exactly. So why did she appear to him? And will his skeptical   
streak save him, or damn him? My brother was a mystic, a seminary   
student, a believer in all things spiritual. He died. Will this young man   
with his no-nonsense approach survive, even succeed?"   
"Who _is_ she?" Xanatos asked.   
The Grandmaster spared him a dry smile. "If you'd taken part   
in the ceremonies, David, you'd know. Or at least suspect, as the rest of   
us do."   
Xanatos chuckled. "Now, I bet this is exactly how Elisa felt   
two hours ago!"   
* *   
The events that would cause such concern among his friends   
and the police began when Matt Bluestone drove into the underground   
complex beneath the manor.   
A woman passed him in the hall, which made him pause in   
surprise. Not at her beauty, although it was surpassing in its own icy   
severity. Not at the telltale beginnings of a pregnancy beneath her   
tailored dove-grey suit. But by the simple fact of her being here.   
It was, plainly, the first time he'd seen a woman in the   
Illuminati headquarters, not counting the transparent phantom babe in   
the museum who was the reason he was here today.   
There were no female Illuminati, which was something that he   
hadn't realized until just now. He wasn't sure which made him feel more   
like a sexist rat. That this was a boy's club, or that he'd only really   
become aware of it as the blond swept by.   
Whoever she was, though, she wasn't why he was here. It was   
the other woman, the dusky-skinned brunette who had taken to haunting   
his dreams.   
He could have learned about her months ago, by invitation of   
the Grandmaster himself. But he'd skipped the next monthly Illuminati   
meeting despite Martin Hacker's objections, still furious and shocked at   
the way Xanatos had handed over the cassette tape they'd taken from   
Elisa's answering machine, the tape which held proof of high-level   
treachery.   
Everything about it had galled him bitterly. The fate of all   
civilization, not to mention the lives of Elisa and Goliath, had come   
_that_ close to oblivion, and he, a cop, couldn't do a damn thing about   
it! He had to sit quiet and be a good boy because apparently being   
Illuminatus came before everything else. One more item to add to the   
list of things they never told you until it was too late.   
He had been tempted to blow it wide open anyway, but of   
course anyone he could tell in a position high enough to do anything   
about it would be connected themselves, and with no fuss or fanfare   
Matt Bluestone would vanish. He knew these people, had known them   
most of his life even if he didn't know their faces. He knew their   
methods.   
Besides, what was he going to do, press charges against   
Demona? Get Goliath to testify against her? The talk-show vultures   
would line up around the block for a shot at that one. Expose her as   
Donimique Destine and whip the public into a panic over the notion   
that gargoyles could pass undetected among them? Bad call.   
The next best step had been to cut off his association with   
them, even though Martin assured him there was no way to quit being a   
member once you were in. He'd skipped the meeting and nobody   
showed up to kill him and make it look like suicide. So he'd skipped   
another meeting.   
And then the dreams had begun.   
Matt had never been much of a dreamer. His dreams were   
often mundane, rehashing old cases, portrayed in sharp black and white   
like a 1940's movie. These dreams, though, were exceptionally vivid.   
He himself never appeared in them, never took a form but was   
the silent observer. Dreams of a sky so blue it couldn't be real, of a lush   
countryside unmarred by asphalt and power lines and airplane contrails.   
Of the woman.   
Of her violent death.   
Matt didn't believe in ghosts. Never had.   
There had to be some other explanation. Hologram, illusion,   
those made sense, especially given what he knew about some of the   
more exotic special effects the Illuminati employed. That didn't explain   
the dreams. He was banking on hypnotic suggestion, and therefore had   
finally swallowed his gall about the cassette tape and returned to the   
manor.   
Only to learn that the Grandmaster had been called away on   
secret business in France. And so Matt had suffered another few months   
of the dream, until he started dreading bedtime and even nipping away   
at Sominex in the hopes that it would sedate him into deeper sleep.   
Nothing had worked. Elisa pressured him constantly about   
seeing a doctor, taking a vacation, getting more rest. It was damn hard   
to hide anything from her, just as she'd been unable to hide the facts, if   
not the details, of her own secrets from him.   
Once, he'd almost broken down and told her, but what held   
him back at the last minute was the memory of a lifetime of people   
looking at him like he was wackerooni. Elisa had proven to be   
remarkably tolerant (with good reason, as it turned out) of his beliefs in   
Loch Ness, Sasquatch, aliens, and the like. But there was one thing that   
got under her skin, it was the Illuminati.   
Yesterday, the Grandmaster had called him at work and invited   
him to meet tonight. Privacy, or the lack thereof, hadn't allowed him to   
ask any questions over the phone, so he'd just agreed. Last night, for the   
first time since the craziness began, he had slept peacefully. As if   
whatever had been causing the dream was relieved by some forward   
motion, some action.   
And here he was, feeling anticipation and worry, and a sense   
of foreboding that prickled the back of his neck.   
The cool blond was long since out of sight, and Matt realized   
he'd been woolgathering in the hallway for quite a while. He took off   
his trenchcoat, draped it over his arm, and knocked.   
"Come."   
Matt entered the Grandmaster's office, glanced uninterestedly   
at the huge lionfish drifting lazily in the aquarium, and finally turned his   
attention to the man himself.   
"Detective Bluestone," the Grandmaster said cordially. He   
scooped up some papers into a neat stack and slipped them into a thick   
manila folder. As he set the folder aside, Matt saw that the name   
"Ferguson" was written on it in black marker.   
"Hello, Grandmaster," Matt said, irked as usual that he didn't   
even know the guy's name. He doubted if Xanatos himself knew, but   
that was beside the point.   
"Please, make yourself comfortable. Tea?"   
Matt noticed the silver tea set on a nearby table, his sharp eyes   
taking in the two used cups and plates. There were still some fancy   
European pastries on a tray, the sort that seemed to be made of air but   
turned out to have about a gazillion calories. Still, Matt had skimped on   
dinner and they looked good.   
"Thanks," he said, helping himself to a plate but passing on the   
tea. "Any coffee?"   
"I'm afraid not. In my family, we've always preferred tea."   
"I saw a lady in the hall," Matt said, glancing deliberately at   
the two cups and making sure the Grandmaster noticed him looking. "I   
wasn't aware we had any female members."   
"We don't, not precisely." He spoke in a tone that, while not   
rude, strongly hinted the matter was not for further discussion.   
Matt let it go. The blond wasn't the woman he wanted to hear   
about anyway. He chomped into a little raspberry pie-thingie topped   
with a blob of custard. "How was France?"   
"Exquisite, as always."   
"I always heard that the French were pricks," Matt observed.   
The Grandmaster shrugged. "You should hear what they say   
about Americans. Do you speak French, Matt?"   
"Jeez, not since high school."   
"German? Spanish? Russian?"   
"Nope, nope, and nope. Well, I've picked up a little Spanish   
from Elisa, but it's probably not anything I should repeat."   
"Do you know any foreign languages?"   
Matt bristled slightly at the tone of contempt he heard or   
imagined he heard creeping in under the Grandmaster's slick accent.   
"Sure. I've been studying conversational Klingon for the past two years.   
What's it to you?"   
"It is just something we're going to have to take into account, if   
you're still interested in learning more about the woman you saw."   
"Of course I am. Why do you think I'm here?"   
"Because you're one of us now, Matt. This is your home. Now,   
to begin, why don't you tell me about your trouble sleeping?"   
"Who the hell told you about that?"   
"No one told me. No one had to. Have you looked at yourself   
lately?"   
"Okay, so I'm not Mr. G.Q. So what?"   
The Grandmaster sighed heavily and fixed Matt with a stern   
yet fatherly gaze. "I'm not trying to attack you or judge you, Matt. It's   
important. Have there been ... dreams?"   
"Yeah! How'd you know?"   
"As I told you before, my brother once experienced what you   
did. To my knowledge, there have only been a handful of people over   
the centuries that have seen the woman, and most of them did so under   
ceremonial conditions. Guided visions, if you will. Some very few, my   
brother and yourself included, have seen her spontaneously."   
"I don't get it," Matt said. "Who is she? What is she? What do   
you mean, centuries? Are you saying she's a ghost or something?"   
"That's exactly what I'm saying. A ghost milennia old."   
Matt snorted. "Hey, I grew up on a steady diet of Scooby Doo   
cartoons. There's never a real ghost, just someone behind the scenes   
playing tricks."   
"We are not living a cartoon!" the Grandmaster said harshly.   
"Now, tell me about your dream."   
"Well ..."   
"Go on."   
"What the hell. Here goes. I'm not in the dream but I'm there.   
Can't talk, can't act. Watching it like a movie in really good 3-D and   
surround sound." He paused, closing his eyes. "The sky is blue. Really,   
deep, incredible blue. No smog, no jet contrails, just a blue that goes on   
and on forever. And it's in the country someplace. Way out in the   
country, because I can't see a power line or telephone pole anywhere.   
It's green, wild, trees with green things on them ... might be olives or   
figs. Doesn't look like anything I've ever seen except in travel brochures   
to New Zealand and places like that. I see a road, but it's really just a   
pair of tracks, wagon ruts maybe."   
"Go on," the Grandmaster said again, his voice hushed yet   
urgent.   
"I hear something. Splashing. I'm headed that way, except like   
I said there isn't a me. I see a house, more like a hut, stone walls with   
mud plastered in the cracks, and a roof made out of hay or straw, can't   
really tell because it's only in the distance. Then I see a creek. It widens   
out at one point and flows over some rocks to make a pool with a little   
waterfall coming into it. There's something on the grassy bank, folded   
up, a piece of yellow cloth. A pair of sandals. Then there's a ripple and   
she comes up out of the water."   
"The woman?"   
"Yeah. Comes up, and the sun is shining on her wet skin, and   
she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, standing waist-deep in the   
pool and wringing water out of her hair. She's smiling, peaceful, so   
happy. She walks onto the bank and sits down on the grass, letting the   
wind dry her off, braiding her hair."   
"Then what happens?"   
"There's a rustling in the bushes and she turns that way, not   
alarmed, like she thinks maybe it's an animal or something, but a man's   
head appears. Bearded, but a funny beard, coiled like ringlets. She   
grabs the cloth and I see it's a shirt or a tunic kind of thing. He comes   
crashing through the bushes, and I know what he wants, she knows what   
he wants, and she takes off running but doesn't waste breath screaming   
because there's nobody to hear her. He's after her, he's a hunter, he's   
faster but she knows the area so she's staying ahead of him, and I'm   
zooming along, following the chase. She starts toward the house, then   
doubles back and is running through tall grass along the creek, and he's   
coming after her, the bastard!"   
Matt paused, gasping, his heart racing just as it did whenever   
he awoke from the dream. He poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea   
and gulped it down. It tasted frigging awful but seemed to help.   
The Grandmaster, leaning forward intently, motioned for him   
to continue.   
"She's running, but she's starting to get tired and he's gaining   
on her, going to catch her. And then she starts to scream, halts midstride   
and sort of jerks all over like she's being electrocuted. The guy stops   
and stares, and I see she's stepped in a snake nest and they're all over   
her legs, biting and biting, and she's screaming, trying to pull them off,   
one of them strikes at her hand, fangs sinking into her, and the guy just   
stands there, stands there and watches while she dies."   
"And then?"   
Matt wiped his brow. "And then I wake up, sometimes yelling,   
always feeling like there are snakes all over the goddam place, and I   
spend the next hour or two trying to get over it. That's why I look like   
crap."   
"Understandable." The Grandmaster dumped a generous   
splash of brandy into Matt's teacup.   
"Just talking about it has me all shook up!" Matt shuddered   
and quaffed the brandy.   
"Here, have another."   
"Thanks." When he'd finished that one, he was able to look at   
the Grandmaster with a fraction of his usual sarcastic humor. "So, going   
to analyze my dream, Dr. Freud?"   
"This is not a dream of hidden symbols and unconscious   
urges," the Grandmaster said seriously.   
"Okay, so what is it?"   
"Matt, are you familiar with the myth of Orpheus?"   
* *   
"Of course!" Xanatos said as the Grandmaster finished   
recounting Matt's dream and their conversation.   
He went to a small table, which held two ancient crumbling   
scrolls, a bound copy of all the spells from his own Grimorum   
Arcanorum (and wouldn't Goliath be pissed if he knew about _that_),   
and a golden musical instrument. "The lyre from the Hall of Antiquities   
Arcanum. The lyre of Orpheus."   
"You know the myth, naturally."   
"Dad was insistent I know my heritage. But ... do you mean   
that the woman you've been talking about ... is the actual, historical   
Eurydice?"   
The Grandmaster nodded slowly. "And Matt, like my brother   
and others before him, is replaying that myth as we speak."   
Xanatos looked at Matt, feeling a sudden chill. "He's ..."   
"Living Orpheus' trip to the underworld," the Grandmaster   
finished. "And, like Orpheus, if he looks back, he fails and loses her.   
But, unlike Orpheus, if he looks back and fails, he too will die."   
"What happens if he succeeds?" Xanatos asked.   
"I wish I knew, David. I wish I knew."   
* *   
"Yoo-rih-duh-see," Matt said carefully. "Is that right?"   
"Close enough," the Grandmaster replied. "Are you sure you   
want to follow through with this? It is extremely dangerous to you."   
"So is having this crazy dream night after night. I'll be ready   
for the rubber room if I don't do something."   
"Very well. You've read all the books I gave you?"   
"Yeah," Matt said, although truth be told he'd really just   
skimmed them, finding them boring as unbuttered toast and full of   
unpronounceable names. But he was sick of looking like an ignorant   
dork in front of this guy.   
"You've practiced the chords on the lyre?"   
"Yeah." His gaze shifted guiltily that time. About the only   
thing he could play on that cockamamie instrument was the first few   
bars of La Bamba.   
"And you've prepared yourself through mediation and prayer?"   
"Yeah," Matt said again, another half truth. He wasn't the   
praying kind; living next door to his Bible-thumping fanatic Uncle Ray   
had soured him toward religion at an early age.   
"Then we're ready to begin."   
Matt looked around. "Is all this stuff necessary?"   
"We'll have to monitor your condition. I intend to stop the   
project at once if you start showing undue amounts of physical stress.   
The electrodes will be painless."   
"I didn't mean those. I meant _those_. The mystic witchy shit."   
"They are a part of the ceremony, a part of the ritual. What   
you're about to do is much more complicated than a mere hypnotic   
trance or even a past-life regression."   
"Past lives? Oh, please!"   
The Grandmaster set down a thick book with a thump and   
glared at him. "Matt, your attitude is not making this any easier."   
"Well, come on, you've been talking about magic spells, secret   
herbs and spices, ghosts, gods, and now past lives. It's all a little much."   
"You saw with your own eyes the power of the apple of Eris,"   
the Grandmaster said. "You know about Oberon's Children."   
Matt started. "Yeah, but I didn't know _you_ did! Not that I   
should be surprised."   
"Have you never heard of suspension of disbelief?"   
"Sure. That was why the English teachers used to call it when   
there'd be some huge embarrassing blooper in a great literary work."   
"You're an aggravating man, Matt. You must take this   
seriously. Your life is going to be very much at risk. My brother never   
came out of his trance, but suffered a massive stroke and died instantly.   
The records list others who have died similarly before him. You should   
not be scoffing."   
"Well, it'd be easier to believe if you were telling me that the   
hypnosis was going to do something to my brain instead of saying that   
Hades is going to rip out my soul like a coupon from the newspaper."   
The Grandmaster shook his head. "This is a mistake."   
"Now, wait just a minute! You've had me locked in a room for   
the past five days, first fasting then eating nothing but that weird food.   
You made me take a bath in freezing water full of rocks and acorns and   
who knows what other lumpy stuff, wear this nutball outfit --" he   
gestured to the simple white linen robe belted with a leather braided   
cord, "-- and made me practice on that harp thingie. I'm going through   
with it."   
"No. You'll never survive. I might as well be putting a knife in   
your heart."   
"Look, okay, maybe you're right and there is something to all   
this. If so, then what about the vision? What about the dream? The   
woman? She's calling me. Eurydice. She came to _me_, Matt   
Bluestone, and I have to answer. It's --" he swallowed hard and made   
himself say it, "-- an omen."   
The Grandmaster gave him a long, hard look, unconvinced.   
Matt put on his most spiritual expression.   
"All right," the Grandmaster finally said. "Let us begin."   
* *   
The first thing he realized upon awakening was that he'd   
forgotten the stupid lyre.   
The Grandmaster had given it to him, showed him how to play,   
made him practice until his fingers nearly bled, and reminded him again   
and again that the lyre would be his key to success.   
And he'd forgotten it.   
"Shit," Matt said, looking down at his empty hands. He hadn't   
been thinking of it at all, hadn't even had it in the back of his mind let   
alone at the forefront, and now he was stuck.   
He sat up. Since the hypnotism and (snicker) "magic spell"   
hadn't worked, there was still time to get the lyre. All he had to do was   
get off the slab and --   
He was on a flat stone. All around him, rocky lifeless terrain   
stretched toward bleak and forbidding mountains. The sky was the color   
of ash. At the bottom of the slope, a river black as ink, black as oil,   
flowed smoothly into a cavern.   
"Son of a bitch, it worked," Matt murmured. "I'm not in   
Kansas anymore!"   
Damn, but it looked real! It felt real! The air that he drew into   
his lungs tasted faintly smoky. If it was illusion, it was the most   
convincing thing he'd ever seen. Could it really be all in his mind?   
Or ... _was_ it as real as it looked?   
What if he'd been drugged, loaded into a helicopter, flown to   
this strange place? That could explain a lot, and was far easier to accept   
than the idea that the Grandmaster really had coaxed him into a trance   
and recreated the myth of the underworld in his imagination.   
But, if that was true, why hadn't they left him the damned lyre?   
A boat emerged from the cave, moving against the current. It   
looked a lot like the skiff Elisa had described, except that it was made   
of bone and the figurehead was a large skull with one single central eye   
socket.   
Riding in the boat was a tall figure shrouded in black. White   
hands, possibly skeletal but impossible to tell at this distance, handled a   
steering pole.   
Charon, Matt remembered. Ferryman of the dead. Over the   
River Styx and into the land of the dead.   
He'd read that far, at least. And was wishing now, most   
sincerely and earnestly wishing now, that he'd studied like he was   
supposed to. Whoever had set this up obviously wanted him to play by   
the rules.   
"Too late now," he said to himself. "Let's boogie."   
He got up, the sharp stones poking his feet through the thin   
sandals the Grandmaster had made him wear, and thought in vain of his   
sensible, hard-soled shoes. Still, there was nothing to be done about it   
now. He picked his way down to the riverbank and the weathered   
wooden dock.   
Ghostly shapes wandered over the gravel and mud, uttering   
low desolate moans.   
Holograms. Had to be holograms.   
Matt thought he recognized some of them. There, a brown-   
haired man wrapped in a grey sheet, who looked just like a jogger he   
and Elisa had questioned a few times. A man and a woman, arguing   
peevishly. And there, a gang of punks that looked awfully familiar.   
None of them were Eurydice.   
The bone boat drew up to the dock. The ghostly forms surged   
forward, clamoring hopefully, and were turned away. Matt approached,   
remembering that he was supposed to pay Charon. Before he thought   
about what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and produced a   
fifty-cent-piece.   
He stopped, staring at the coin, then checked his robe. No   
pockets. Yet the coin was real. Down to the 1987 stamped on it.   
Now the forms moved toward him, smoky fingers reaching for   
his coin. He shoved through them, literally, since they had no substance.   
"Jeez!" he declared, reaching the dock. "Worse than subway   
bums!"   
The ghosts fell back, and Matt found himself face to cowl with   
the ferryman of the dead. One slim, pale hand reached up and adjusted   
the hood, letting some dim light fall on the pallid face within.   
"Owen Burnett!?" Matt blurted.   
Ice-blue eyes fixed upon him. Not a flicker of emotion crossed   
that thin face. It was Owen, all right.   
"Only the dead may pass this way," Owen intoned.   
"What the hell are you -- oh, I get it! How'd they get you to go   
along with this? Xanatos put you up to it?" He started to step over the   
side, and was stopped by a firm hand.   
"Only the dead may pass," Owen repeated.   
"Right, so you've got to play it to the hilt, huh? Come on,   
Burnett. Don't screw around with me."   
"Only the dead."   
Oooh, crapola, Matt thought. This was where he was supposed   
to win the guy over with a few tunes.   
Briefly, he considered bursting into song, and quickly rejected   
that notion. His singing voice was oaky for the shower, but not at all the   
sort of thing that would win him a boat ride. In all likelihood, Burnett   
would be so appalled that he'd just knock Matt overboard.   
Into the amnesia-inducing waters of the River Styx, he recalled   
as another scrap of his reading came back to him. With the wide array   
of chemicals and drugs at the disposal of the Illuminati, he didn't want   
to chance taking a dunking into that, thank you very much.   
"Uhhh ..." Matt said. "Well, um ..."   
Burnett stared impassively at him.   
"Hey!" Matt brightened. "If I blow it, I'm as good as dead   
anyway! Might as well avoid the rush! What do you say, pal?"   
A timeless moment went by, and then Burnett extended his   
hand.   
Matt dropped the coin into it.   
The cloaked figure beckoned, and Matt stepped onto the boat.   
* *   
Once, the year before what the rest of the family evasively   
called "John's trouble," his father had taken them all to an amusement   
park. Matt remembered the cautionary advice of the ride attendants, and   
heeded it now.   
Keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times.   
You bet!   
He had zero desire to dangle his pinkies in the inky water. He   
sat in the center of the boat, made himself small as possible, and tried   
not to get splashed when the occasional ripple would break against the   
hull.   
Behind him, not making a single sound except for the rustle of   
his robe, apparently not even breathing, Burnett poled the boat on.   
The cavern soared overhead, or at least that was how it felt.   
Matt could see nothing at all. Even the pale glimmer of the bones had   
vanished a few yards into the darkness. It was not unlike what he   
imagined one of those sensory-deprivation tanks would be like, except   
he'd read somewhere that they were kept warm. Body temperature.   
Of course, given the folks that usually passed this way, it   
_was_ body temperature.   
Whoever had set this up had really gone all-out. Matt was   
seriously impressed. He could almost believe it was real.   
Finally, ahead, a flicker of flame.   
The boat pulled up at another dock, this one made of piled   
rocks and looking older than Stonehenge. The dock extended to a flat,   
crescent-shaped stretch of uneven gravelly ground and heaps of   
driftwood or weathered bones. The firelight came from marble basins   
resting on the gravel, burning some thick oil.   
Matt got out of the boat and glanced back at Burnett. "Coming   
along, or you going to sit this one out?"   
Burnett said nothing but pointed into the shadows at the rear of   
the widest part of the beach, where the rough cave wall met the ground.   
There appeared to be an opening, a narrow split in the rock.   
"Great," Matt muttered. He marched off in the indicated   
direction, stubbed his toe on a chunk of wood as long as his forearm,   
and stooped to pick it up. It would do as a club, just in case.   
The boat, and Burnett, had vanished as if they'd never even   
been there in the first place. Matt fought down a chill that wanted to   
scamper up his back. He wasn't going to let this place get to him. No   
matter how dark and creepy it was. It was all fake.   
Something growled in the darkness.   
Matt's teeth clacked audibly. He clenched his jaw and slowly   
turned. There, in the deepest shadow, he saw a quick, furtive gleam.   
Like the eyes of an animal, reflecting the firelight.   
He hefted his makeshift weapon and told his feet to go that   
way. His feet obeyed, but hesitantly.   
The growl came again, a menacing and hungry rumble. Gravel   
grated as if under a heavy weght.   
Eyes. A pair of eyes, glowing silvery lamps. And then another   
pair, and a third.   
A shape, hunched and low-slung, large.   
The clatter of metal, chains dragging over the ground.   
Matt scanned the cave wall but saw no other openings. The   
boat was gone, so he couldn't go back. Had to go forward. Besides, it   
was just a fancy production. He wasn't in any real physical danger.   
Yeah, right.   
He took another step, and the stillness was shattered by a   
baying howl.   
Matt twitched but held his ground as something came at him   
with the speed and power of a freight train.   
The chain yanked it to a stop just a few yards from him, barely   
within the fringes of the firelight, and Matt laughed in relief.   
"Bronx! Hey, boy, how'd you get down here?"   
The big denim-blue doggoyle looked at him.   
With all three heads.   
Matt nearly fell on his ass.   
Three pairs of eyes blazed white. Three mouths gaped wide to   
issue a challenging bellow. Bronx's body strained against the chain that   
connected the three collars to the wall. His back claws dug trenches in   
the gravel. His forepaws raked the air.   
"What did they do to you, boy?" Matt asked, horrified. "Who   
did this? Sevarius?" He approached, holding out his hand. "Hey, boy,   
it's okay. It's me, Matt. Good boy."   
The centermost head sniffed, then snapped. Matt was thankful   
for quick reflexes, or he might have lost a few fingers.   
Beyond the chained doggoyle, a passage curved away into the   
blackness. It was the only way he could go, but how to get past Bronx?   
He figured he was supposed to soothe the savage beast with   
his music. Spiffy.   
Instead, he waggled the stick in front of Bronx's faces. "Hey,   
stick, see the stick? Wanna fetch? Wanna get the nice stick?"   
Bronx snuffled and snarled, but his short little tail flapped   
excitedly.   
"Oh, come on, you want the stick," Matt wheedled. "Nice   
stick!"   
The left head lunged and tried to seize the stick, but Matt   
jerked it away.   
"Here! Fetch!" He threw it one way and himself the other, as   
Bronx stampeded past him looking roughly the size of a Volkswagon.   
As soon as the hindquarters were past, Matt leaped over the chain and   
ran down the passage.   
He couldn't see an inch ahead of his nose. One pit, or low-   
hanging outcrop, and it was curtains for Gladys Bluestone's oldest boy.   
To make matters worse, Bronx realized instantly that he'd been tricked,   
and whirled to pursue. The only plus side was that his blazing eyes cast   
enough light to allow Matt to navigate.   
Just in time, too. There was a narrow but deep crack in the   
floor. One misstep, and his leg would have gone in to the knee,   
probably breaking in the bargain. Matt went over, then veered to one   
side to avoid a spur of rock sticking out of the wall.   
Bronx's hot breath steamed the back of Matt's neck. He   
cringed, sensing three pairs of jaws open wide. He dove forward,   
skinning hands and knees and elbows.   
The chain yanked taut. Bronx uttered a strangled triple yelp   
and snapped briskly backward, rolling along his chain like a big blue   
yo-yo. Matt stood shakily, wincing at the stinging of his abraded flesh.   
Bronx righted himself, shook all three heads, and charged   
again.   
Although he knew the chain wouldn't reach, Matt stepped back   
anyway. A mistake, as he felt the dropoff, but it was too late to correct.   
Instead of a shaft, he landed on his back on a steep slope, and   
shot down it headfirst. He had no trouble imagining a boulder in the   
middle of his path, and the sound his skull would make colliding with it.   
And if the Grandmaster was right, if this realm did exist in his mind,   
he'd better quit thinking about things like that, or they might suddenly   
come true.   
He rolled onto his stomach, unable to brake his descent. He   
had always liked sledding as a kid, but without the cushions of snow, it   
wasn't nearly so much fun. Besides, in sledding, you could choose your   
hillside and not be rocketing into the dark wondering if you were going   
to shoot off the edge of a precipice.   
A pinpoint of dull light appeared ahead of him, and grew   
rapidly. Now he could see himself popping out of a cliffside and   
plunging thousands of feet into a river gorge. He forced that image out   
of his mind.   
His wild ride ended when he was tumbled gracelessly onto a   
forest floor spongy with loam and moss. Tall, coarse-barked trees rose   
around him. He staggered to an upright position, holding onto a tree   
until he was sure he was in control of his balance again.   
"Some fun," he said to himself.   
Just then, a distant agonized roar echoed from on high. Matt   
recognized the voice at once.   
"Goliath?!"   
* *   
The forest had changed, becoming a dreary, grey, lifeless   
mockery of the landscape in his dream. He pressed on, seeking the   
source of the constant roaring. It sounded like Goliath was being   
slowly, viciously tortured.   
He came to a clearing and saw in the cloud-dappled moonlight   
a small house. It was only then that he realized he could see the moon, a   
barren ghastly skull shrouded in mist.   
A woman emerged from the house, and for a moment Matt's   
heart leapt in his chest, thinking it was Eurydice and his mad quest at an   
end. But the woman, although dark-haired, although certainly a babe,   
was not the woman he sought.   
It was his partner.   
"Elisa?" he said.   
She didn't hear him, didn't see him. Her attention seemed fixed   
on a large flat stone in the middle of the drab garden around the house.   
She was dressed strangely, as strangely as he was himself. Sandal straps   
crisscrossed their way up her tawny legs, a plum-colored toga was   
draped sexily low, and her hair was piled high in a coronet of braids.   
Somehow, she had gotten caught up in all of this. She must   
have come looking for him when he turned up missing, and the   
Grandmaster had either sent her or she'd found her own way.   
Maybe Owen Burnett would play along, and poor old Bronx   
didn't know what was going on, but Elisa was different. She wouldn't   
get involved in any Illuminati mind games.   
He dashed up to her, trampling the garden, and found her   
struggling to move the flat stone.   
"Elisa! Wow, am I glad to see you!"   
Goliath's roar cut through the night again, and Elisa didn't   
notice. She looked up at Matt, her eyes haunted.   
"Help me move the stone," she said. "Why did I bury it? It was   
a gift, a gift for me, not meant to molder away beneath the earth!"   
"Say what?"   
"They must be waiting for me to open it. Surely something so   
lovely must have even more splendid treasures within, and they're   
disappointed I haven't properly thanked them."   
He stared closely at her. She wasn't Elisa. A dead ringer   
physically, and the voice was the same, but the speech was all off. And   
the Elisa he knew wouldn't have been scrabbling at a rock while   
somewhere Goliath was suffering.   
She dug her fingers beneath the edge of the stone and tried to   
lift. "Help me!"   
"Okay," he said uncertainly, and put his own back into the   
effort.   
The stone came up, dangling a few worms and sending some   
beetles scurrying for cover. They tipped it into the weeds and Elisa   
threw herself at the churned earth, ripping loose huge chunks, her   
knuckles bleeding, fingernails torn to the quick.   
"Elisa, what --"   
She cried out in fevered triumph and withdrew her hands.   
Clutched between them, clotted with soil, was a dazzlingly beautiful   
gold box.   
"Now I will know!" She fumbled at the latch.   
"Oh, hey!" Matt tried to grab it, suddenly understanding.   
"Don't open --"   
Too late. The lid came open. Elisa leaned forward eagerly,   
eyes alight and expectant.   
"No!" Matt yelled.   
Dark shapes swarmed out of the box. Tiny, winged shapes.   
Tiny gargoyles. A dozen, a hundred, all of them miniature Demonas.   
Hissing and snarling and spitting hatefully, the swarm settled upon   
Elisa.   
She screamed as talons furrowed her skin, pulled her hair. She   
dropped the box. It landed on its side and Matt saw a final Demona   
trying to wiggle out. He kicked the lid shut, trapping her.   
He reached for Elisa, but she was up and running, flailing   
blindly as Demonas savaged her face. Blood coursed down her cheeks   
like tears.   
He went after her. The curtain blocking the doorway of the   
little house billowed as she fled through it. Matt swept it aside and   
plunged through the door --   
-- and Elisa was gone. The house was gone. He was standing   
on a mountainside with no idea how he got there.   
High above him, bound to a rock and circled by a gleaming   
Steel Clan robot, was Goliath.   
* *   
"What _is_ this?" Matt clapped his hands to the sides of his   
head. "Greek mythology's greatest hits?"   
He got it now. Even woefully undereducated, he had a general   
grasp of some of the myths. Not enough to do well in Jeopardy, but he   
at least knew the basics.   
He'd recognized the Pandora thing, though not in time, and   
now here was Goliath, playing the part of the guy who'd given fire to   
mankind and been condemned to eternity having his liver torn out by a   
bird.   
The mountain was impossible to climb, and even if he could   
get up there, the chains holding Goliath were even more formidable   
than the ones that had held him in the ruined cathedral, during that   
apple incident. Plus, there was the matter of the robot.   
For the time being, it seemed satisfied to swoop in and gouge   
at Goliath's midsection. But Matt had no doubts that, the moment he   
tried to interfere, it would sprout all manner of deadly devices and   
flatten him into a grease spot.   
Night was fading fast, and Matt took some solace in the   
knowledge that dawn would bring Goliath a respite and a healing.   
But when the sun came up, Goliath remained unchanged.   
Matt frowned, until he saw that the sun wasn't a sun at all but a   
big fireball hooked to a team of horses whose manes and tails streamed   
flame. He could even make out, by squinting, what looked like a Ben-   
Hur type of chariot up there.   
The chariot careened crazily across the sky, out of control. It   
dove close to earth, and Matt felt his skin tightening from the heat.   
Trees withered and wilted. A pond began to steam. And then, just as it   
seemed the very stones would spontaneously combust, the chariot   
soared high.   
High, higher, highest, until the fireball twinkled like a distant   
star. New night fell over the world, and a bitter, Arctic cold. Matt could   
see his breath, feel his teeth chatter.   
Then it was coming closer again, and a sudden bolt of   
lightning seared the sky. Something tumbled from the chariot,   
something small, spinning helplessly, falling.   
Something that was Lexington.   
Matt called out uselessly and started to run, but he was much   
too far away. He'd only gotten a few steps when the falling figure   
disappeared behind the mountain.   
Nothing could survive that kind of fall.   
Matt turned back to Goliath, hoping he hadn't seen the death of   
one of his clan, although there was no way he could have missed it.   
Goliath was gone. The mountain was gone. Now, the scene   
that lay before him was of a dark and gloomy valley, knee-deep in   
somber brown grass, the sky a gunmetal grey shell. High cliffs funneled   
the valley together at the far end. Stooped figures in rags wandered   
listlessly, poking at the ground with sticks.   
Not far from Matt was a group of men, weathered and worn   
but looking more alive than the rag-wearers. They were heading into the   
valley, led by one tall, powerfully-built man with silver hair and a stern,   
noble face. He was flanked by a tough-looking woman with short red   
hair, and a blocky blond man who was leading a shaggy goat.   
Matt knew all three of them, although only the leader by name.   
It was MacBeth, and his two flunkies. And a bunch of other guys.   
They hadn't seen him, so he crouched in the grass and watched   
as they moved along. When they stopped and appeared to be conversing   
with one of the rag-wearers, Matt inched closer as stealthily as he could.   
The rag-wearer was a gargoyle with a strip of cloth tied across   
his eyes. Hudson.   
He could just make out MacBeth's strong voice. "I am weary   
of these travels," he was saying. "I want nothing more than to find   
peace. My wife waits patiently for me, weaving and re-weaving my   
shroud."   
Hudson said something and gestured. The blond man, at a nod   
from MacBeth, brought forth the goat and in a single brutal motion   
slashed its throat. Blood, startlingly bright in the gloom, gushed into a   
shallow trench in the earth.   
The rest of the rag-wearers gathered around, emitting a   
wordless, needful keen that put Matt's nerves on edge. Whatever was   
going on, he didn't want to be a part of it. If they'd kill a goat -- no,   
_sacrifice_ a goat -- would they draw the line at a human?   
He had no clue what myth MacBeth was supposed to be re-   
enacting, or what Hudson's part in it was. All he wanted was to get out   
of this place and figure out what the hell was going on.   
He sidled well around them and proceeded down the   
narrowing valley. He could see the place where the cliff walls came   
together.   
A large cave opening loomed before him. A cold breeze   
breathed from it, carrying the wails of tormented souls and the smell of   
damnation.   
* *   
At some point in his journey, Matt Bluestone had stopped   
trying to see where the wires were. He no longer thought he was   
witnessing good special effects. He didn't know how long it would last,   
but for now, he just decided to go with the flow.   
He thought he was coping pretty well until he walked into the   
cave and saw the three massive judge's benches, and peering down from   
on high the faces of Martin Hacker, and Captain Chavez, and his father.   
"We are the judges of the slain," John Bluestone said. "Prepare   
to face us."   
Matt's mind was reeling. His father was all wrong. This man   
looked the age John Bluestone would look, if he hadn't died fourteen   
years ago.   
The body had been so badly burned that not even Gladys,   
John's wife, was able to recognize him. A car accident, the police said.   
Hit by a drunk driver, his own car flipping and catching fire. Due to the   
condition of the body, the authorities had recommended a quick   
cremation to finish what the accident had started, and Gladys agreed.   
So there was no body to exhume, no way to re-check the dental   
records. Very tidy.   
Although just a teenager, Matt had known even then what was   
going on. They'd done something to his father, taken him away   
somewhere, and made up this phony accident.   
Here was the truth. His father _was_ alive. Somewhere.   
Martin Hacker, his ex-partner at the FBI, fellow Illuminatus,   
and one-time friend, grinned a death's head grin at Matt. "We are the   
judges of the _slain_," he said. "This one is still breathing."   
"That will have to be remedied," Maria Chavez said sternly.   
She beckoned, and Officer Morgan came forth, dressed all in black and   
carrying a spear.   
Matt barely noticed. He was still staring at his father, knowing   
in his heart that he'd been right all along. John Bluestone had been   
silenced before he could prove the truth.   
Morgan raised the spear and prepared to strike.   
Three shrieking hideous creatures swept down on him.   
The three were identical in their monstrousness except that   
each had hair of a different color, one white, one dark, and one coppery.   
Their whips uncoiled, sparkling with barbs of metal woven into their   
leather lashes.   
Morgan fled, dropping his spear and holding his hands over   
his head to ward off the bite of the leather. The moment he had ducked   
behind Chavez's bench, the winged hags surrounded Matt.   
He was jerked out of his stunned state by the vicious crack of   
those whips, not touching him but slicing the air in front of his nose.   
The three judges watched impassively.   
He supposed now would have been another good time to have   
that stupid lyre.   
"This one judgement shall not stand," the blond hissed.   
"Drawing breath and mortal hand," the redhead added.   
"To darksome king and to his bride," the brunette chimed in,   
"he'll go and they his fate decide!"   
Matt gaped at them, but before his mind could deal with all of   
this, the three whips snaked out and flicked almost playfully across his   
shoulders and back. He bit off a cry of pain although he felt thin   
streams of blood trickling.   
The attack ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The hags   
landed in front of him, folding their attic-smelling feathery wings   
against their hunched backs.   
"You will go and you will fail," blondie predicted.   
"Heart will stop and skin will pale," red said.   
"Through Tartarus your path does lie, where life must end and   
love must die" quoth the brunette, nevermore.   
All three raised their stick-spindly arms and pointed to a flight   
of stairs beyond the judges' benches.   
It was probably a little late to wonder if he was cracking up.   
* *   
So this was Tartarus. Minus the fire and capering devils, it   
didn't look all that different from Uncle Ray's descriptions of Hell.   
He saw Mace Malone, still looking mean as a cat scratch, on a   
steep hillside. Mace was stripped to the waist, his scrawny old man's   
body straining with the effort as he braced his shoulders and back   
against a gigantic round boulder.   
Step by excruciating step, he shoved the boulder up the slope,   
but then it broke free, bounced past him, and rolled all the way to the   
bottom. Mace sobbed once, a horrible defeated sob, and began trudging   
down the hill to start over.   
A bunch of women, former girlfriends all, were gathered on   
the shore of a lake trying to drain it with colanders. A favorite teacher   
was bound to a wheel, which revolved endlessly, endlessly. Everywhere   
he looked he saw people he knew caught in a variety of ingenious and   
cruel torments.   
"Hey! Matt! Over here!"   
Deeply shocked by the sound of his name, he tripped on a   
loose stone and fell to his knees.   
It was Broadway. Up to his neck in a pit filled with a bubbly,   
frothy brown liquid. By the smell, rootbeer.   
A tree stretched its branches over the pit, and food dangled   
from the branches. Bagels, pizza, a Big Mac, a bag of Fritos, a jumbo-   
sized Hershey's bar with almonds.   
Despite this apparant bounty of junk food, Broadway looked   
haggard, thin, and awful. He reached up, fingers brushing at the candy   
bar, and the tree moved ever so slightly, enough to shift the treat just   
beyond his grasp.   
"Come on, Matt, an assist here!" Broadway grumbled. "Break   
me off one of those branches, would you?"   
"Here you go," he said, snapping off a branch with a cluster of   
egg rolls hanging like grapes. Just as he held it out, he saw something.   
A castle, towering dark and tall on the far side of the plain. He stood,   
letting go of the branch.   
Broadway grabbed for it eagerly, missed, and swore as it   
splashed into the rootbeer.   
Matt took a good, long look at the castle.   
"Why am I not surprised?" he muttered.   
* *   
"Welcome to Erebus," Brooklyn called as he landed at Matt's   
side.   
The red gargoyle wore sandals with feathery wings, and a   
helmet with gold wings raked back speedily along the sides of his head.   
"Erebus," Angela's voice echoed, although there was no sign   
of her.   
"The palace of Hades," Brooklyn elaborated.   
"Of Hades."   
"What are you two doing here?" Matt asked. "Well, you one   
and a half."   
"A half."   
"I brought you something." Brooklyn held out the shining   
golden lyre. "You've come so far on your own, you deserve a fair   
chance."   
"A fair chance."   
He accepted it with a wry smile. "Great! I'm sure this will be   
_loads_ of help!"   
"Of help."   
"I wish you'd stop that," Matt snapped irritably.   
"Stop that."   
He sighed.   
So did she.   


* *   
He entered the throne room and saw what he should have   
expected since the moment he laid eyes on the boatman, what he _had_   
expected since he laid eyes on Erebus.   
Or, as it was known in other circles, Castle Wyvern.   
A woman wearing a skintight black gown sat in one of the   
thrones. Her red-gold hair framed a beauty only enhanced by the blue   
foxhead around her eye. In one hand she held a pomegranate, its skin   
split to reveal the plump wine-red seeds within.   
A man sat in the other throne, with a velvety mantle flowing   
from his shoulders. His brown hair was tied back in its customary   
ponytail, his dark eyes flashed as sharply as ever, and a scepter topped   
with a grinning skull rested across his knees.   
"Hello, Xanatos," Matt said.   
"You speak familiarly to the lord of the underworld, mortal."   
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Haven't we played this silly game long   
enough?"   
Xanatos scowled. "This is no game!"   
"Look," Matt said, "I admit it had me going for a while. Pretty   
convincing stuff. Especially Elisa, because I knew she'd never be in on   
something like this. But then I got to thinking about all the other   
illustrious members of our little club. Disney, Lucas, those boys. I   
bought into it for a while, but what it all comes down to is special   
effects."   
"You dare!?"   
"Oh, for pete's sake, come off it! What I want to know is why.   
Why me? What is the Grandmaster really up to? None of it was ever   
real, was it? Tricks. Hypnotic suggestion. Even the dreams. Even the   
woman."   
He felt a bitter pang of sorrow as he said it, but he knew it was   
true. She couldn't be real. It had all been an elaborate setup, a hoax, to   
get him intrigued and then put him through this crazy experiment.   
"This woman?" Xanatos asked, making a grand, dramatic   
gesture.   
Matt looked.   
There she was. Nude, eyes demurely downcast, hands clasped   
in front of her.   
His throat wanted to close with emotion, he was so glad to see   
her safe and unharmed. The more he'd gone through on her behalf, the   
more she'd come to mean to him, until he was practically in love with   
her although they'd barely met.   
But he reminded himself that she was just as much a part of   
this as Xanatos himself. Not a spirit, but an actress.   
"Who are you really?" he asked.   
"Eurydice," she murmured.   
"I'm serious!"   
Her huge, soulful eyes briefly met his, then dropped. "It is so."   
He almost believed her.   
"She belongs to me," Xanatos said. "Her death makes her   
mine. There will be no more of your tricks, mortal. You think your   
music will sway me again? Hah! Even were it so, you would never   
reach the above world without looking back."   
Matt sighed. "Damn it, Xanatos, do we have to play out this   
stupid charade? Okay, okay, that's the way you want it, fine." He set his   
fingers to the lyre strings.   
Xanatos steepled his own fingers in anticipation.   
Shrugging, Matt ripped into the opening chords of La Bamba.   
Xanatos violently recoiled. The pomegranate fell from Fox's   
grasp and detonated on the marble floor, spraying seeds like shrapnel.   
Erebus itself seemed to shake.   
In gloomy Tartarus, Mace Malone's boulder cracked in half.   
The tree of junk food toppled into the pit of rootbeer. The lake roiled.   
The wheel stopped its revolutions.   
The three judges halted in their verdicts. The three hags were   
knocked from the air as if swatted. All over the underworld, ghostly   
forms gasped and writhed and cringed.   
Bronx lifted his three muzzles and howled. The bony craft of   
the ferryman tilted and nearly capsized.   
And somehow, as he played, Matt Bluestone knew all of these   
things happened.   
"Stop! Stop!" Xanatos commanded. "Take the woman! Take   
anything! Just cease that loathesome noise and go!"   
Matt let the music die away. He threw the lyre at Xanatos' feet   
and thrust an accusing fist under his nose. "I'm ready for some answers   
now!"   
"You have your life, and the life of the one you sought. Go and   
be thankful for those, and do not look back even once! Else you both   
perish and are condemned to the torments of Tartarus for all eternity!"   
"I'm warning you, Xanatos!"   
"Go, fool!" Fox ordered, leaning forward, her lovely face   
contorted into a snarl. "Your refusal to believe has let you survive, even   
let you win through, but do not defy us further! Know that none here are   
what we appear, but only images your own mind has placed over our   
true forms! Know that we are Hades and Persephone! Know this, and   
despair!"   
Matt glared at her. "Well, if that's true, then now that you've   
told me, I should see what really is real. And all I see is a washed-up   
television bimbo trying to make like Elvira!"   
Fox shrieked, and her husband bellowed in rage.   
And then the world changed.   
The medieval hall of Castle Wyvern was replaced by a   
brooding circle of black columns supporting a peaked roof. Xanatos   
swelled to twice his previous height, his skin darkening, his eyes   
becoming like molten gold, his body encased in black armor, a   
fearsome scowl knitting his merciless brow.   
That was all Matt needed to see. He was, in a word, convinced.   
"Flee, mortal!" The voice of Hades was thunder and death.   
"Touch her not, look on her not, until you have reached the upper   
world!"   
No problem, Matt thought.   
* * 

The underworld was dark and silent.   
Matt pressed on, eyes grimly forward. He could hear the light   
step of Eurydice behind him, her faint breathing.   
All of the other denizens of Tartarus had vanished. Their   
torments stood desolate and abandoned. Not a single thing moved.   
"Don't worry," Matt said, then cringed at how loud his voice   
sounded. "I'm getting you out of here."   
She didn't answer. He almost turned to see if she was all right,   
then caught himself. He didn't doubt that Hades, or Xanatos, or   
whoever, would make him stick to the rules. No looking back. Or she'd   
be gone, and it would have all been for nothing.   
The benches of the three judges were empty. The whips of the   
Furies lay on the floor.   
Matt's footsteps echoed in the still chamber. But only his   
footsteps. He stopped suddenly, straining to hear Eurydice.   
Nothing.   
Silence.   
She wasn't there.   
He'd been tricked.   
They'd never had any intention of letting him win. She was   
gone.   
No! She was there! It was part of the stupid game. His mind   
was playing tricks on him, his own doubts were making him think she   
had disappeared when she was really following him. He just couldn't   
hear her steps anymore because she was barefoot. That was it. His   
sandals made more noise. Yeah.   
Hudson and the shades were no longer in the valley. Of   
MacBeth and his crew, there was no sign except a shallow trench   
crusted with dried blood.   
The grass rustled at his passing, but when he stopped again, so   
did the rustling. Was she so light that she didn't so much as bend a   
blade of grass? That twigs didn't snap beneath her feet?   
She wasn't there.   
She was.   
He had to make sure. Just one little peek.   
Nobody would ever know.   
Just one quick glance to assure himself that he hadn't been   
tricked.   
No!   
If she was there, and he looked, she _would_ be gone! If she   
wasn't, he had nothing to lose.   
He clenched his jaw and kept moving, through the valley, past   
the mountain where empty chains lay amid the stones.   
Was that her breathing he heard, or the sigh of the wind?   
Why wouldn't she say anything? She had to know he was   
going crazy up here! Why didn't she speak?   
She was in on it. Toying with him.   
No. She was innocent.   
Then why didn't she speak?   
"Eurydice? You okay back there?"   
No answer.   
Because there was nobody there to answer.   
Because she was being prevented from answering.   
He passed the tiny house and garden. No Elisa. Just a gold box   
lying in the dirt. And there, down that path, an opening in a   
mountainside. The chute, steep and slick, rising into the darkness.   
Matt paused in front of it, frowning. He'd have to climb it, and   
if he fell, he would slide right back into Eurydice.   
Assuming she was even there.   
She _was_! Dammit, she was!   
But if he slipped and ran into her, that would count as a touch   
and she'd be whisked away forever.   
He had to try. It was the only way back, the only way out.   
"I'm going up," he said. "Stay close, but not too close. Brace   
your hands against the sides. And if I fall, try to get out of the way if   
there's room."   
He started his ascent.   
In the close confines of the chute, his own breath was loud as a   
windstorm. But when he held it, he heard only silence.   
He'd been tricked. He'd go all the way to the surface, and then   
turn and see that she had never been there. And Burnett, always the   
good flunkie, would have been told by Xanatos not to let him back on   
the boat. There would be no way to return.   
He had to look.   
He couldn't look.   
Still, he _had_ to!   
It was too dark to see anything in here even if he did look. He   
promised himself he'd wait until the top, and then if he still had doubts,   
he would go on and look.   
His feet slipped once, but he caught himself before he ran into   
her.   
If she was even there to run into.   
She was! She had to be!   
He got back up and kept going. Now he was at the level   
corridor, blindly picking his way around the outcrop and gingerly   
feeling ahead with his toe so that he wouldn't fall in the crevice.   
All of the inhabitants of the lower regions had been gone, but   
what about up here? What about Bronx? He didn't have a stick to   
distract him, and doubted that Bronx would fall for it twice even if he   
did. He didn't even have the lyre, since he'd chucked it at Xanatos.   
Now there was a sound, a deep rumbling exhale. And another,   
and a third, all overlapping.   
Matt couldn't believe his luck.   
Snoring. Bronx was asleep.   
The large body partly blocked the opening, but Matt was able   
to ease around him without touching. He could only hope Eurydice   
followed his example. If the three-headed guardian of the underworld   
awoke, there was no way Matt could even try to fight him without   
accidentally catching a glimpse of Eurydice.   
The gravel beach was still lit, but the flames had burned low.   
Were they far enough yet? They had to be. They'd come out of   
the underworld. Surely he could look at her now.   
He didn't dare.   
The gravel clicked and grated under his feet. Only his.   
She wasn't there. She had never been there.   
He had to look.   
* *   
"You used the language acquisition spell?" Xanatos asked,   
sitting back and putting his feet up while he paged through the   
Grandmaster's notes.   
"It seemed reasonable."   
"I cast it -- well, _I_ didn't; Demona did -- on the gargoyles   
just before their first New York sunset. It seemed quicker and easier   
than learning Scottish. And do you know, not once did anyone, even   
Detective Maza, question how it was that we all understood each   
other?"   
"I assume you used the same thing on your honeymoon?"   
"Yes. Dad never wondered about it either."   
"Matt's journey is in his mind, so he probably won't need to   
know ancient Greek. But who's to know? I'd hate to have him fail   
simply because he couldn't understand the language."   
"I hope he makes it," Xanatos said. "I've always kind of   
admired the tenacious little bastard."   
"Funny, I once said the same thing about you."   
"It's nice to know I'm held in such high regard."   
"Well," the Grandmaster said, "we are practically family."   
"How is your niece, by the way?"   
The monitors began to bleep more rapidly before the   
Grandmaster could reply. "He's waking up!"   
Xanatos jumped up and joined him at Matt's side. "Signs of a   
stroke?"   
"No, he --"   
Matt's eyes shot open and fixed on Xanatos. "You son of a   
bitch!" he yelled, and launched himself off the slab.   
Xanatos stumbled back, not quite in time.   
Matt's fist connected solidly with his jaw. "I didn't look! Give   
her back! Damn you!"   
"Matt!" the Grandmaster said sharply.   
Matt leaped on Xanatos, fingers going for his throat. "If I can't   
have her, I'll take you with me!"   
Much as he hated to do it, Xanatos was beginning to strangle   
so he popped Matt neatly in the solar plexus.   
Matt's grip loosened as he started gasping raggedly. The   
Grandmaster seized him and hauled him off Xanatos, who got up   
rubbing his neck. He'd have marks there the next day, and a knot was   
already rising on his jaw.   
"Packs a punch," Xanatos remarked, the words feeling like   
they were made of jagged glass squeezing through his throat.   
"I won fair and square!" Matt said, struggling with the   
Grandmaster. "Or do you cheat on your own rules?"   
"I don't know what you're talking about!"   
"Don't you, Hades?" he shot venomously.   
"Enough!" the Grandmaster said.   
"He cheated! I didn't look! I almost did, yeah, but I stopped   
myself! I got all the way to the boat. She was there! I know she was!   
Just ask Owen!"   
"He's delirious," Xanatos said.   
"I'm sorry I called your wife a bimbo, if that makes any   
difference. Now give her back!"   
"You called my wife a _what_?"   
"David, please, you're not helping."   
"Where is she?" Matt demanded.   
"Right there," the Grandmaster said with sudden awe. His   
hands slackened, his eyes were wide.   
"What?" Matt looked.   
A nude woman was crumpled on the floor. As the three men   
stared in surprise, she moaned and tried to sit up. Long dark hair, done   
in many thin braids, fell across her face. Her skin was olive-complected,   
her figure girlish yet full.   
Faded scars, tiny round punctures, dotted her lower legs.   
Snake bites.   
* *   
Epilogue:   
What do you do with a Greek myth brought to life?   
Matt was _not_ going to leave her at the manor. Not to be   
studied by the Illuminati like some lab animal.   
Nor would she be entrusted to Xanatos, no matter how often   
he insisted that he'd had experience acclimating legends to the 20th   
century.   
His apartment was out of the question. Sure, he was mostly in   
love with her. Sure, he'd saved her life and seen her naked. But that   
didn't mean they had to rush things.   
He couldn't ask his family to help him out. He could just   
imagine Mom and Uncle Ray's reactions.   
No, when things get weird, there's usually only one person a   
good cop can turn to.   
The door opened, and she gaped at him. "Matt?!"   
"Hi, Elisa. This is Eurydice. Can she crash at your place for a   
while?"   
* *   
The End 


End file.
